Sounders upbeat after breakthrough win

It's generally a good sign when a coach opens his postgame press conference with a joke, and that's what happened tonight.

“It’s one of those games again where I see we outshot them 19-2, so again we created chances but … oh,” Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said. The joke was, yes, Seattle had outshot its opponent again, as it had in so many frustrating results this season. In fact, those 19 shots set a club record.

But this time the Sounders also finished: Leo Gonzalez in the fifth minute, Steve Zakuani in the 24th and Fredy Montero in the 42nd.

The resulting 3-0 win over New England moved Seattle to 4-5-3 on the season, while the Revs fell to 3-7-2.

Some postgame quotes:

More SIGI: "It was nice to get some goals. Tremendous first goal by Leo Gonzalez, that was a wonderstrike. It was a tremendous strike on goal. Zakuani as well, a very well-hit ball. And Montero, a good combination that put him in. But again, I thought the soccer we played was good. I thought playing out of a 4-4-2, I thought we were more dangerous having a partner up front. I thought Freddie Ljungberg wide right was outstanding, creating numerous opportunities for us, and as we get used to him there as well it will make it easier for us to get him the ball more often in better positions also. But I was just pleased with our effort. The theme today was we wanted to play like there’s no tomorrow, and we came out in the first half and we played that way.

"It does a lot. We put a lot on our plate with these last two games here at home – we’ve got D.C. coming here on Thursday and we want to get our record to .500 before we go into break. We want to make this a tough place for teams to play – I think we made it that way tonight. IT does a lot for our spirit, it does a lot for our confidence, it does an awful lot for our morale. It was good to win and also to score some goals."

LEO GONZALEZ (through an interpreter) "The opportunities showed up. I managed to go to offense and thank God managed to score.

"Before talking about the goal, I want to dedicate this to our friends. Guys like (Jhon Kennedy) Hurtado and (Michael) Fucito. Thank God, again, it was a beautiful goal and gave us confidence for the remainder of the game.

"It was a matter of getting the confidence to kick and a little bit of luck as well. Thank God and it was good goal."

KASEY KELLER"Obviously 3-0, we're very happy with that. Long overdue. I thought the mentality from the very first minute was tremendous. We pushed them. We kept them in their half. We challenged for everything. The work rate was second to none, this season, and the standard has been set. It's great. Anytime it drops, everyone can go to the film and say, 'You do this or we find someone else, because you've proven that you can.' I'm just happy. I'm happy for everybody. I'm happy, obviously, for the fans and the ownership and the players because this is what we've been working hard to earn. But we know we've got another game on Thursday. Although we're going to enjoy ourselves, and fans are going to enjoy themselves, we can't do this halfway. We know we've got another game on Thursday that we're more than capable of winning as well. And what a great way to go into the minibreak with six points. It's halftime for me. Now the second half starts against D.C."

STEVE ZAKUANIIt was important. I think the three points was the most important thing, because we have to win. I think I said on Tuesday, this was the most important game of our Sounders careers so far. We had to win, we just had to win. We’ve been saying for a while that there will be a game where we’re going to break out, and tonight happened to be that night. . . On another night we could have five or six, I think that’s the only disappointment, but it was a good result. Good to give the fans that, and it sets up very well for D.C. on Thursday."

New England goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth"We didn't get the result we wanted, I don't think we played very well. We just have to keep moving on and put this behind us right away."

"It was my first MLS start, it was good to get it out of the way and we can keep progressing and picking up some points."

"It is never good to give up an early goal and they came after us right away. I just have to keep progressing and moving forward."

New England coach STEVE NICOL"The first two goals were just window strikes, at the same time we didn't defend well. It is just school boy stuff; you don't let a man behind you on a throw in. We were sleeping and let a guy get to the edge of the box. It was a great finish but we were contributing to our own downfall. It is tough to come back from that. The third goal is just down right bad defending."

On his halftime speech: "I probably couldn't repeat it. We came out and played better. We played so bad in the first half we would have had to come out better. There is nothing we can take away from this game that is positive."

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